Which Sub-specialty is in the OR the most?

[JRBR]

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I tried searching through forums but was unable to find the answer.

I've been lurking on this forum for a while now, and am seriously considering ophtho after a short ophtho rotation.

Which of the ophthalmology specialties is in the OR the greatest percentage of time they are working? Which does the most operations?

Thanks for any replies.

 

[OPPforlife]

Neurophth. Way too many optic nerve decompressions to do...duhhh


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[4424]

I tried searching through forums but was unable to find the answer.

I've been lurking on this forum for a while now, and am seriously considering ophtho after a short ophtho rotation.

Which of the ophthalmology specialties is in the OR the greatest percentage of time they are working? Which does the most operations?

Thanks for any replies.

You're asking a tough question. Retina is probably the most surgical sub specialty but they don't do the most operations. The high volume cataract guys will do way more cases per week than retina. Depending on private practice or academics most sub specialties will either have a half or full day of OR per week.

 

[MPMD]

Ophtho rotations can be tricky. Short third year rotations seem to be mostly in the OR, whereas 4th year rotations may offer a slightly more realistic picture, being more clinic heavy. Although even these don't really give you a great idea of what it's actually like to be an ophthalmologist (or so I've been told), as shadowing is often a major component.

Most of ophtho is clinic. That said, I know attendings who operate a lot more than average. Specifically, I know a retina guy who is in the OR 3-4 days a week in some capacity, and a couple plastics guys/gals that generally have 1-2 OR days a week (one day is often combined with ENT/neurosurg or another specialty), and 1-2 clinic procedure days (including blephs, mohs closures etc.). But note that they are all at a high volume academic referral center. I'm not sure if these numbers are possible in private practice.

If being in the OR is important to you, ophtho is somewhat of a sacrifice. But I found that most of the OR heavy surgical specialties (ortho/gen surg/neurosurg) come with much worse lifestyles than ophtho, so it just depends on what is important to you. And ophtho clinic is often MUCH more tolerable and interesting.

 

[LightBox]

Most of ophtho is clinic. That said, I know attendings who operate a lot more than average. Specifically, I know a retina guy who is in the OR 3-4 days a week in some capacity, and a couple plastics guys/gals that generally have 1-2 OR days a week (one day is often combined with ENT/neurosurg or another specialty), and 1-2 clinic procedure days (including blephs, mohs closures etc.). But note that they are all at a high volume academic referral center. I'm not sure if these numbers are possible in private practice.
.

Not to be too cheeky, but "high volume" and "academic center" are an oxymoron. Yes, academic centers often have more complex cases, but in terms of volume, you can do 2-4x as many cases in private practice (e.g. in an ASC).

During my training, the max # of cataracts the attendings would do in a full day was on the order of 10-13. Most would do around 6-10. In private practice, we routinely can do 25-35 in a day and be done at a reasonable time. There is just too much b.s. in academic centers that slows things down unnecessarily (e.g. ancillary staff that have no incentive to move faster; onerous paperwork). That is why some academic docs operate over several days during a week -- because they can't fit the cases in a single day.

 

[JRBR]

Thanks everyone for the responses. The ophtho rotation I did was with a retina specialist, and he had 2 OR days each week, averaging around 10 cases a week. It was pretty amazing to see the intricacies and details of his procedures.

It sounds like 1 day a week of operations could be typical, but that it can vary quite a bit depending on how one sets up a practice. Related to that, any specialty in ophtho can have a lot or few cases in a week based on how their practice is structured.